I'm a Damsel (I Can Handle This)
by DeathMeetsLife
Summary: /he'll come back/ the waves tell her. Back and forth. Back and forth. /he swore on the Styx/ the wind whispered in her ear, tickling her neck with her swept hair. /he swore and we heard/. "No man finds Ogygia twice," she replied, and she returned to her plot of moonlace. If she stabbed the soil hard enough to blunt her gardening spade, it was nobody's business but hers. HoH Spoiler


Time moved on after he left as it did before he came. The birds sang as they rose with the sun. Her invisible servants tidied her cave. The waves rolled onto the shore, then away, back into the sea.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

The feeling that clenched around her heart was nothing particularly new; she experienced it after every hero left her on the crisp, white shores. To put it simply, she was accustomed to it.

Her ambivalence didn't stop her from screaming her frustration when she tripped through her curtains and the rod fell to the ground, though.

* * *

_he'll come back_ the waves tell her. Back and forth. Back and forth.

_he swore on the Styx_ the wind whispered in her ear, tickling her neck with her swept hair. _he swore and we heard_

"No man finds Ogygia twice," she replied, and she returned to her plot of moonlace.

If she stabbed the soil hard enough to blunt her gardening spade, it was nobody's business but hers.

* * *

For the first time in several millennia, she could see dark storm clouds roiling on the horizon. The waves pounded the crisp white sand, churning it up and obscuring the normally crystalline water. Backforthbackforth.

_there are great disturbances in the Ancient Lands_ the spider monkey told her. He hung precariously from his perch in the gum tree, but his dark gaze was trained on the building tempest. _shelter would be advised; no land will be untouched by Her evil_

"Would you like to take cover in my cave?" She inquired, concerned for the frail creature.

His eyes returned to her, and his wizened gaze bored into her own, leaving her feeling young and childish despite her age. _we all have our places when destruction falls upon us, cousin. Mine is not in a cave_ The monkey swung back into the trees, disappearing in the thick canopy.

She looked back at her home of countless years, then back at the turbulent skies. "Neither is mine," she murmured resentfully, "Though it seems to be where I have been sequestered."

She spent the rest of the afternoon covering her plants and sandbagging her garden, preparing against the oncoming storm.

It was the following morning when she recalled the fountain, but the storm had knocked it from its base, littering the yard with broken piping.

* * *

The next day, she rallied. The downpour had ceased for the moment, though the sky threatened to open up once more. "I may be unable to affect the storm," she told a python, "but I won't let the storm affect my home, either."

The snake flicked its tongue at her a few times before resuming its path across her broken water feature.

She found a long-forgotten whetstone with some of her old cutlery and set about sharpening her spade. She would need it for digging trenches to direct drainage.

An expanding adhesive paste sealed the fountain's piping.

A single dining chair that escaped the boy's fiery entrance to her island (which only forshadowed his infernal presence in her life) was utilized to remount the curtain rod and new, water-slicking curtains she had whipped up that morning.

She continued to weave sandbags, which she stacked between the dunes and her lawn. As the storm continued to build, so did her walls.

_behold the island fortress!_ the wind howled as it battered against the barrier _even Earth cannot break this stronghold!_

* * *

The storm stopped. For the first time in weeks, the sun bore down on the island. Her invisible servants set about clearing the debris that had covered the beaches. Her gardens, lawn, and cave, however, remained pristine.

As the sun warmed her cheeks, she cast a proud gaze on the horizon. "I did this. I protected my home," she told the sun. "Maybe I can't affect what happens to the outside world, but I can affect what happens to _me_. Perhaps," she continued to eye the seam between the cerulean ocean and the equally blue sky, "the reason why no man has ever found Ogygia twice is because he never had a woman to help him."

She set to work.

* * *

The celestial bronze gleamed in the low light of daybreak as she polished the parts to a high sheen. The crystal she had broken from her cave sat in its setting, wrapped in wire and capped in the same bronze as the rest of the conical contraption. With any luck, the celestial bronze would act as an amplifier of the crystal's already potent energy.

He had taken a similar gem when he had parted from her company.

She sat back on her heels and admired her work. Like calls to like. Her homing beacon will bring the sister crystal home.

* * *

_he swore on the Styx_ the wind wrapped itself around her as she adhered another broken piece of fountain back to its base. _he swore and we heard_

"So I've been informed," she replied coolly. "Reminders are hardly necessary."

_it is fulfilled_ the wind breathed.

_it is fulfilled_ the waves echoed.

She wiped a dirty hand across her brow, smearing the soil across her forehead. A glance to the horizon confirmed nature's gossip. "Took him long enough," she sighed, straightening and marching down to the beach.

As the vessel she assumed to be _Argo II_ drew closer (unless, of course, animated mechanical dragons on the prow were now commonplace, in which case identification would be more difficult) her lips lifted in satisfaction.

_You may be a son of Hephaestus_, she gazed back at her paradise_, but stand in awe of what I have built_.

A scrawny figure lept from the deck into the shallows with a whoop of joy. Deceptively strong arms pulled him towards her, and the waves carried him high like the hero he was.

_it is fulfilled_ the tide chanted rhythmically. _it is fulfilled_

As he swept out of the waves, he lifted her bodily into the air. "You're brilliant! How did you manage a homing beacon?" Her grin split her face as she laughed.

"You left some scraps behind," she returned flippantly, "and I had some time on my hands."

"Well, I'm telling you, there is a very tiny, slim, almost _infinitesimal_ chance that I would have been completely lost forever without it." A gleeful flame danced behind his dark eyes. "Those hands of yours will definitely be put to work at Leo and Calypso's Garage: Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters. Speaking of, how do you feel about a Caribbean-ish color scheme? I've been thinking about it, and I think it'll tie in with the whole feel of the name, don't you?"

She lightly smacked him on the head before throwing her arms around his neck. She smiled as the scent of wood smoke and oil filled her senses. "I think it would work perfectly."


End file.
